New generator, power lines at high school hot topics for East Hampton school board

Jeff Mill

Published 12:00 am, Thursday, January 10, 2013

EAST HAMPTON >> It was supposed to be just a simple re-allocation of funds to permit the installation of a new generator at the high school and bury a power line to serve the Board of Education offices.

But the Town Council balked at acting on the requests while they determine if the work at the school could be folded into the proposed renovation and expansion of the high school.

In addition, Councilor Ted Hintz Jr. said he was troubled by the wide discrepancy between the low bid and the next lowest bid to bury the power line to the school administration office.

The low bid is for $19,000, the next low bidder is for $40,000 Hintz said.

"A $20,000 difference is ridiculous," Hintz said.

There is little debate about the need of the two projects. The town's emails system is run through a server at the high school. But the server is under-power and not always reliable, Town Manager Michael Maniscalco said.

"There are instances in which I have not received emergency emails from the state because the service has gone down," Maniscaclo said.

He said the system is prone to failures during high-wind situations in particular.

The school administration was asking to re-allocate funds to buy a new generator to provide more reliable service to the server room.

But council members said more study is needed to determine if that upgrade could be folded instead into the school renovation project that is currently under review by a building committee.

The need to bury the power line to the school administration is particularly critical, officials agreed. Last July, a passing truck snared the overhead line, pulling it down and igniting a fire at the building.

"That is already an old building," Maniscalco said. But fortunately, "a fire wall had been installed between the first and second floors." That firewall prevented the fire from spreading, he said.

Otherwise, "the whole building could have gone up in flames," Maniscalco said.

The town will receive between $5-6,000 from its insurer for the damage, Maniscalco said.

School officials proposed and reallocating $18,225 to bury the line and upgrade the service to 400 amps.

But Hintz said he was struck by the discrepancy between the two bid prices - and alarmed because the proposal only involves burying roughly 100 feet of a power line.

The council deferred action until they can get additional information.